Report: Nearly half of London's students have not been to a theater or seen Shakespeare.

Despite living in the same city that William Shakespeare wrote many of his plays and saw them enacted, a new report from London's Social Mobility Commission says that almost half of London's students haven't been to a theater to see a play, never mind The Globe Theater reconstructed to showcase the Bard's work.

In the past decade, The Globe Theater--through donations by Deutsche Bank--has had 150,000 London students see a Shakespeare play free of charge, with 20,000 alone visiting in the past year treated to see The Taming of the Shrew.

The study showed that specifically 44% of students had never seen a theatrical performance. Indeed, Georghia Ellinas, head of learning at Globe Education, told the BBC, "We hear from teachers that some London school students who come to the Globe, living only two or three miles away, have never seen the Thames before."

The reason seems to stem from an income gap, where poorer students and their families can't afford the discretionary income required to see the theater, never mind the cost of traveling public transportation for the six mile round trek.

The Social Mobility Commission looked into various activities and income gap issues, and found it wasn't just the theater, per BBC:


"It found that trips to the theatre, galleries, the cinema or the zoo were all more likely for wealthier families - with the likelihood of such visits rising and falling in a way directly linked to family income."


I'm not sure how Shakespeare would have taken this to know seeing a hyena exhibit or checking out the next Fast and Furious entry are as difficult for many to see than one of his plays.

Does this mean Vin Diesel = Shakespeare?

At least in one sense.